Of all the business activities of the American Government in the World War, none aroused in the business men of America more interest or more concern than the Government’s employment of its function of making contracts with industry for the production and delivery of war supplies. There is little danger of putting too much emphasis upon the importance of the war contract. After the declaration of war, the Government rapidly assumed unprecedented powers over business, until in the heavy productive months of 1918 it occupied a supreme position. The War Industries Board had virtually commandeered all important raw materials and was distributing them at fixed prices. The Government had become the sole dealer in wool; it was closely regulating the prices of, and determining priorities in the use of, such commodities as copper and steel; through the United States Fuel Administration it was in full control of the production, distribution, and use of fuels; and its position was equally monopolistic toward all other important basic materials. Of the labor, the machinery, and the processes which normally manufactured these materials into the commodities of American commerce, the Government had become almost the only employer; only now it had woven these facilities, the industrial facilities of the largest of industrial nations, into the intricate texture of an arsenal. Mechanical industry for private enterprise had almost disappeared. On the day of the armistice the factories of the United States were working practically as a unit in the production of munitions. While the Navy, the United States Shipping Board, and the military missions of the principal Allies were also prosecuting extensive war industrial projects in America, the War Department alone had entered into some 30,000 contracts directly with builders and producers, these contracts upon their consummation obligating the Government to pay out a sum in excess of $7,500,000,000. Of this production, less than half (reckoning it in money value) had been completed on the day of the armistice.